Anybody can cook, can't they?
by spiffytgm
Summary: A simple cake can't be that hard to make, can it? Complete fluff. Babe all the way. Total HEA, with a small challenge thrown in for fun. Second one shot added in answer to Isabellsah Cullen. :-)
1. Chapter 1

**I made pineapple upside-down cupcakes the other day, and with the leftover batter (and only 2 pineapple slices) made a happy face cake. What could be happier than Pineapple Upside-down Cake, right? As soon as my daughter saw it, she said, "Are you going to write a story about this?", and I thought , why not? This one's for you, Laurel. :-)**

**If anyone else has a one-shot about the base of Stephanie's food pyramid - Dessert - I'd love to see it!**

**As usual, all characters belong to Janet Evanovich, although all mistakes are mine.**

I can do this. Sure making a cake from a box mix isn't that hard, but it's also not something that I'm used to doing by myself. At least it shouldn't be hard. Try telling that to the charred remains of my previous two attempts currently decorating my garbage can. I have to remember to take the trash out to the dumpster before anybody sees it. I have a reputation to uphold.

The kitchen is a wreck. While I was attempting cake number 2, I pulled the beaters out of the bowl before I turned the mixer off. There is still cake mix dripping from the ceiling. Fortunately I still have a few hours before the front door opens, bringing my love home to me. There is plenty of time to remove the evidence.

Ok, preheat oven to 325 – Check. Cake number one taught me that you can't just cook it at a higher temperature for less time.

Mix, eggs, oil and water in large mixing bowl – Check. If this one fails, I only have enough eggs for one more try.

Stir until smooth – Check. This time I remember to turn the stupid machine _off_ first.

Pour melted butter in bottom of pan – Check.

Sprinkle brown sugar over butter – Check.

Arrange pineapple slices in pan – Uh oh. This can't be happening. There are only 2 pineapple slices left. What happened to all the pineapple slices? I slide another glance at the garbage can. Oh, yeah, that happened. Ok, I can deal with this. I arrange the pineapples and cherries in the bottom of the pan. This is even better. This is now a happy cake. It's even smiling.

Pour the batter in – Check

Bake at 325 for 35 minutes – Check? I set the timer on the stove. For good measure, I also set the timer on the Microwave, and the one on my cell phone. There is no way I am going to miss this one. Thank you, cake number two. Besides, I plan on staying in the kitchen to clean up the mess.

I put all of the empty measuring cups, bowls, and dirty pans in the sink. Once they are soaking, I drag a chair in from the dining room so that I can reach the ceiling to clean it. Stupid high ceilings. Just as I reach up to wipe the cake mix off, I hear the front door unlock. Crap. I should have had more time.

"Carlos, are you here?"

I make it to the archway in time to see her unloading her bags in the foyer. "Babe. I thought you weren't going to be home for another hour."

She walks up to kiss me, but wrinkles her nose instead. "What is that smell? It smells like you tried to cook Rex." She stands up on her tip toes and tries to peek around me. If you can't beat 'em, distract 'em. I grab her by the waist and give her a bone melting kiss hello. This could work. I glance at the timer on the microwave. I have 25 minutes. I can work with that.

I tuck a curl behind her ear. "I'm glad you're home. I have something to show you." I start to lead her towards the bedroom. 25 minutes isn't enough time to truly appreciate her, but I'm up for the challenge.

She leaned into me for another kiss. I made two steps towards the bedroom when she ducked under my arm and went to the kitchen. She stood there slack jawed, staring at the disaster that was our kitchen. After taking in the sight, she started laughing. Once she started, she couldn't stop. Finally, she sat down in the dining room and wiped the tears from her eyes. I couldn't really pull off an annoyed look, after all, I've seen what it looks like. I told her, "I don't think it's _that_ funny."

She was still giggling. "Oh, but it is. You're a superhero. There's nothing you can't do. Who knew Batman can't cook? I would take a picture, but no one would believe it wasn't my mess." She walked over to me and put her arms around me. "Would you believe that I think it's really cute that you messed up?"

I managed to give her a grumpy look. "If you call me cute again, they'll repossess my man card."

She laughed again. "Does sexy sound better?" I nodded. She kissed me and said, "Let's get this cleaned up, and you can tell me what you were doing."

"No," I told her, "I'm still trying to salvage the situation. Why don't you go put your stuff away while I clean up, and I'll tell you about it over dinner." She agreed, and took her bags into the bedroom while I went back to the kitchen. I finally finished cleaning everything up when the timers went off. I got the cake pan out of the oven and onto the cooling rack without a problem. This one at least looks like a cake. I left the cake to cool and brought dinner out to the dining room.

We settled down to Ella's chicken and wild rice. After dinner, I went back into the kitchen and flipped the cake pan over onto the cake plate. I lifted the pan to make sure that the cake wouldn't stick, and that everything looked the way it should. I brought it out to the dining room still covered, and explained what happened. "Babe, I know your mother stopped talking to you when you walked out on Morelli. I also know that Ella makes you any dessert you want, any time you want it. In the six months that we've been together, you've turned my world upside-down. I can't imagine not having you in my life." I picked the tray up off the table and got down on one knee. I lifted the cover off of the cake pan to show Stephanie the happy face upside-down cake with a vintage diamond engagement ring in the center. "I will love you forever, and I want the world to know it. Stephanie Michelle Plum, will you do me the honor of marrying me?"

With shaking hands, she picked the ring up off of the cake. I set the plate down and took her left hand in mine. She looked up from the ring into my eyes, hers swimming with tears. She said, "Yes", and threw herself into my arms where she belongs.

**A/N I went ring shopping on Ranger's dime... If you want to see the one we picked out, I pinned it to a certain website... /spiffytgm/plum-diamond/**


	2. Chapter 2

**Isabellsah Cullen issued a challenge to share an embarrassing story, and I immediately thought about the first meal my sister and I ever cooked. To be fair, I was 9, and Gayle was 13. We got better. If that wasn't enough, I threw in some of our other finest moments. We can laugh at them now. I also firmly believe that Jersey Girls are genetically incapable of cooking grits. I moved south more years ago than I care to admit, and I still can't do it. **

**Oh, yeah, all the characters you know and love belong to Janet Evanovich. All the mistakes, in and out of the kitchen, are mine. (and Gayle's)**

"Val, are you sure about that?" I asked as my sister carefully measured.

My sister gave me a look that clearly said she knew better than me. "I printed these directions carefully. I know what I'm doing!"

Boy, that brought back a whopper of a memory.

Our parents were at grandma and grandpa Mazur's house. Grandpa was really sick, so they had gone to help grandma out. Since they still weren't home by 5:30, my sister Val decided that we were going to cook dinner. How hard could it be? We were both in middle school. She was in 8th grade, and I was in the 6th. She has been taking Home Economics that semester, and they had just started a section on cooking. Since she read the entire textbook in the first week of class, she figured that made her an expert.

Since neither of us had ever cooked on our own before, Val was going to do the more difficult sauce. I was in charge of cooking the spaghetti. I filled mom's pot with water and set it on the stove to boil. While I was waiting, I watched Val put together the ingredients for the sauce. I don't think she did it quite right, but she won't listen to me. Once the water started to boil, I added the pasta and stirred it. After that, I remembered to read the directions and set the timer.

While it was boiling, I noticed that the water level was getting lower, but I just kept stirring. Val asked me to go get the tomato sauce, so I wandered off to the pantry. I returned to the stove just as the timer went off. I looked in the pot and froze. The water had boiled out and the pasta was burning in the bottom of the pot. I didn't want Val to know that I had screwed up, so I quickly turned off the burner and emptied the pasta into the strainer. If Val noticed that no water came out of the pot, she didn't say anything.

Since my part of our cooking experience was done, I gladly went to set the table while Val finished the sauce. Soon the whole house was filled with the delicious aroma of spaghetti sauce. Why does Val have to be perfect at everything? By the time our parents walked in the door, everything was waiting for them on the table. They looked so worn out that I was glad we did this for them.

We all sat at the table and shoveled food onto our plates. Mom turned to Val and said, "Everything looks and smells wonderful, darling. You are going to make some man a wonderful wife someday!" Hey, I cooked, too! Just as I was about to kick Val under the table, she told mom that I made the spaghetti. Mom ignored her, but dad ruffled my hair and said, "Good job, pumpkin."

We watched while dad took the first bite. Both of us were so anxious to see the look of pleasure on dad's face. Neither of us were prepared when dad started to choke and raced to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Unsure of what could possibly have gone wrong, we both took small bites of our dinner. OH MY GOD! I spit out whatever that was and quickly downed the glass of milk in front of me. Val burst into tears. Dad came back into the dining room clutching his water glass and turned to mom. "Helen, why don't you order a pizza?" He ruffled my hair again and smiled. "Pumpkin, that was the crunchiest spaghetti I have ever eaten!" I know spaghetti isn't supposed to be crunchy, but he was laughing, so it was good, right? I mean, I know it tasted horrible, but dad wasn't mad at all.

Val was crying even harder now. Mom came back from the kitchen and wrapped her in a hug. She was holding the recipe that Val had copied from her home ec book, and laughing quietly. Val wailed, "I don't know what went wrong!"

Mom smoothed out the paper on the table. "It wasn't your fault, sweetheart. You only made a teeny tiny mistake. You weren't supposed to put 14 teaspoons of garlic into the sauce."

"But that's what the recipe said. I copied it down exactly!"

"No, honey, it's supposed to be 1/4 teaspoon of garlic."

I couldn't wait for the pizza to get there.

Snapping back to the present, I looked into the pot we were working on. By herself, Val can put together a pretty decent meal, now. Why she decided we should try this is a mystery to me. I scooped out a runny, nasty spoonful and let it fall back into the pot with a plop. "Val, nobody in their right mind eats grits anyway. When Albert's grandmother gets here next week, take her to the diner like a normal person."

Val looked into the pot and smiled. "If this was red, it would be just like that spaghetti sauce."

I hugged her and laughed. "That wasn't as bad as the Spam and onion casserole."

She looked horrified that I would mention that. "Well, at least I'm not the one who set the microwave on fire popping popcorn!"

She did not just go there. "No, you flooded the kitchen using soap instead of detergent in the dishwasher." Ok, I can see the storm clouds over this horizon. I should stop her before she remembers the time I wiped out the garage door backing out before it was totally up. I held up my hands. "I'm sorry. Let's just admit that we sucked in the kitchen. At least you got better." Neither of us looked at the pot.

"I'm sorry, too. I'm just nervous about Albert's grandmother visiting. Are we good?"

I smiled at her. "Good? We're the best!" What can I say, we're sisters.


End file.
